Homo Geomyidae

A friend of mine recently graduated from the local "digital arts" college with aspirations of being a modeler (for video games and movies and the like). Among the tools that he was constantly blabbing about was a program called ZBrush. What made it stick out in my mind was him telling me one day, in a very matter-of-fact way, that I'd probably love said program. Well, for whatever reason I dismissed it entirely; probably not wanting to dedicate any more time learning the in's and out's of a newfangled computer program. He did mention that it was a lot like sculpting with clay, so I probably dismissed it because I'd rather sit down with an actual clump of clay to make something happen.

With that being said however, something came over me the other night and I actually looked into
what this program could do. Admittedly I was blown away. So I got my hands on a trial version of the program and started playing around. After about half an hour of hacking away at the preloaded sphere, this is what I came up with - Gopher Boy. I'm pretty sure I'll be experimenting a lot with this program in the coming days, weeks, and months; I'm equally sure that I'll be sharing some of the more precious gems here, with you. Until then, happy painting. Or drawing. Or sculpting with digital clay.

Ugly Mug Mondays! #7

I've been enjoying the casein studies that I've been doing so much that I decided to shake things up a bit. There are a lot of things digital "paintings" can do well and I think my favorite are the blacks. You can get them instantly without any fuss and they don't have the tendency of deadening a picture. Rich blacks are fantastic.

At any rate, this week's offering for Ugly Mug Mondays! is a digital one. I've been tooling with the ol' Wacom less and less often these days (other than value studies for paintings) which I'm surprised to say surprises me - I'm really starting to have fun pushing the pixels around.

I've got two paintings in the pipe right now. I hope to get those up here within a fortnight.

The last two projects I tackled with Painter were kind of cutesy - and there's nothing wrong with that - but I thought I'd try something a little more realistic this time around. I was still playing with the mixing palette function, but this time I restricted myself to the two colors (Painter's approximation of yellow ochre and alizarin's crimson) plus black and white. I have mixed feelings about it overall.

I know that only a poor craftsman blames his tools, but up until recently I was running two monitors on my computer. It was nice. I could have Photoshop or Painter open on the right and have whatever reference I was using on the left. True, I could have both open on the same monitor, but then the two things I want to look at are fighting for priority on the already limited real estate. I've been spoiled by dual monitors for about 8 years now. I just can't make the transition back in a manner of weeks. Sigh.

So, my problem with this was constantly having to switch back and forth. It's so inconvenient. It would be like having to turn around to look at a model then back again to look at your drawing. I feel it's a bit more on the choppy side because of the disconnect in my chain of information. Outside of that I think the colors are kind of drab, but at least they all work well together - though I would hope so since they're all related thanks to the limiting of the palette. I think it could stand to be a little more towards the high-key range of things, but I'll live. I love the hands though. I was worried they'd lose some of their charm when I tried to "paint" them, but I think I pulled it off well. And I think they're my favorite part of the image. Also I'm realy liking the pastel tools I've been playing with. I've always wanted to play with pastels (since it's more akin to drawing with a painting flair) but I've never been able to bring myself to actually sit down with some and try.

Anywho. It is what it is and for what it is I'd say it's done. Next time I think something with a little bit more color is in order.

Painter XI. 2 hours.

Experiment No. 2593

A friend of mine did a doodle of a kid in a bath and sent it to me. There was something wonderfully naive about it that inspired me to branch out a little. I did this sketch in my faithful moleskine and kind of went about my business. Though, after I did Run, Fat Girl, Run (for which this picture served as a stylistic inspiration) I figured I would scan it and continue my exploration of Painter.

This time I set out to play more with the color mixing feature. I've been experimenting with a limited palette of yellow ochre, alizarin crimson, mars black, and white (more on that next time) and I wanted to know if Painter was smart enough to effectively mimic the results. Not quite, as it turns out. For the colors used in the rendering of the flesh things were pretty consistent, but the weird green I've been getting from yellow ochre and mars black was no where to be seen. All things considered I'm pleased with it's versatility. I had to give in when it came to the tub and the water though. There's just no way to get a blue from yellow, red, black, and white. Obviously.

Other than that, I think I lost some of the whimsical character from the sketch after scanning it into Painter. Originally she looked more like a kid in a bath, which was the point, but now that I'm talking about it that seems weird. But I digress, I think it's pretty solid. Things are coming along fairly well I think. I'm definitely willing to explore this direction for a while. Until next time! Thanks for looking.

Doodle Doodle Doodle...

I made you out of pixels. Ok, so my talents don't lie in parodying holiday songs. I'm sorry.

Loose 20 minute warm up and experiment rolled into one. I've noticed normally when I work in photoshop I keep the transparency set at about 80% or so. I may get crazy and drop it down to about 40% for an electronic "glaze". (But only if I really want to live life on the edge.) This time around, after I had most of the shapes where I wanted them I started playing around with a really low opacity. I hoped to soften edges and drop in some tone where things should be shifted towards light or dark.

Photoshop CS3. 20 minutes.

Pip Pip?

It's a new year.

Well... it has been for about three weeks now. Obviously I'm a little behind the times. But this dashing chap is always in style. Stylishly late, if you will. (And I hope you will!)

At any rate, I hope everyone's new year is treating them well so far. Cheers!

P.S.
Should he have a monocle? I kind of feel like he should have a monocle.

Photoshop CS3. 30 minutes.

Digital Desires

What else would I do at 4 am other than fire up Photoshop and make an image? Yeah, I don't know either. I mean, who sleeps at 4 am?

So, I'm continuing down my path of creating work that's completely digital. I still have some misgivings about it, and I still really enjoy the tactile quality of painting at the easel, but this digital thing is starting to make a lot of sense. It does help that the benefits are a many and they whisper in my ear while I sleep. Thus far I've limited myself to only black and white, and I've been pleased with the results so far. This image is still a little jumpy in certain areas, but on the whole I think it's coming together. At least a huge step in the right direction.

There will probably be a lot more of these on the way. I'm doing them just to be doing them. I don't know what direction I want to take them, but it's all helping. It's all building towards something. (Other than french fries.)

So here it is.

Approx. 3 hours. Photoshop CS3.

Deeper into the Digital Rabbit Hole I Go!

Sometimes when I can't sleep I like to play dress up and play with some of the myriad of props I've collected. Trouble is, I often never have a project in mind for them, so they end up collecting whatever the digital equivalent of dust would be.

Unable to let things go, I've been tinkering with brushes in Photoshop. (Who? Me? Stubborn? No!) I forgot that you could customize them and make them do your bidding as you bend them to your will. Silly me. So tonight I thought I'd pull one of the aforementioned silly pictures out of mothballs and try to make something happen.

I think this is a lot closer to what I'd want to be doing if I were to create illustrations with a Wacom tablet. It doesn't feel as sterile and flat as other things I've done in the past, and I didn't even have to impose a texture on this one! Originally I planned on coloring this image (and I may very well still do that) but I got really into just playing with black and white - then I realized what time it was. So, I'm off to bed before my lady wakes up and kills me. Or looks at me with severe disappointment. I can't tell which would be worse. You'll have to wait until next time for any kind of update on this cowpoke.

What's he looking at, I wonder?

About an hour and a half. Photoshop Cs3. Intuos 3 tablet.

P.S. I have some ACTUAL paintings coming down the pipe. I miss oils.

Day Job

Sometimes the day job spills over into my art. Once upon a time I was sitting down with my boss and playing with her iPhone. I went to play with the camera (I don't know why, it just kind of happened, okay?) and she pulled a silly face. As she's been known to do. Like the sneaky little sneak that I am I emailed it to myself. I swore one day that I'd do something with it. So, viola!

Continuing my exploration of the digital realm. I think part of my trouble is I think square. When I'm painting in the real world (as if I enter some alternate dimension to paint with pixels...) I use flats and brights for about 92% of what I do. I really only pull out a round for a few details and to sign my paintings. To that end, while there are some nice flat brushes in the software I use, it has the disadvantage of not being able to be turned in space. If the brush has a natural 45° slant to it, it will always have that slant. I can't rotate it and get a wider stroke or turn it on it's edge and get a fine line.

This time around I kept the image in Photoshop (as opposed to getting frustrated and moving it over to Painter, as I've been known to do) and simply used the default brush. I'm pleased with the results, but it doesn't really feel like me. Yesterday's painting has more the feel I want to be getting from my tablet, but wasn't as tight as I'd like it. I don't know, something like 10% tighter would be better I think. Next time mayhap I'll try the square brushes in Photoshop, but so far Painter still has my heart.

However, thanks to my buddy Brian the color-choosing process went a little easier this time. He sent me this link that really simplifies it to an almost "no-brainer' level. I've know (and have been rather intimate with) the HSB sliders for the last few years, but I overlooked the swatches entirely. I'm sorry, swatches. Can you ever forgive me?

P.S. My boss doesn't always look like this. Only half the time (maybe a little more). I swear.

2 hours. Photoshop CS3.

A Digital Caip-er!

A long overdue character study, for a long overdue piece for a friend of mine. She's got a whole bunch of story written up that I want to get my hands on and maybe start drawin' some of it up. If any of that starts to happen, I'll be sure to let you know. In the mean time, however you can enjoy this preview of Caip.

Ok, I'm beginning to concede. I think I'm getting a better handle on this digital thing. I'm still kind of frustrated because I can't seem to find the colors I see in my head in the sliders and color wheel. There's something kind of sweet in just having a few tubes of paint to limit your palette to simplify things. When I've got every veritable color at my finger tips it's hard to reel myself back in and take it easy. I'll see if I can work through it, though. I may just have to do more stuff like this.

About 2 1/2 hours. Painter IX.

Quick Practice

I'm toying with the idea of starting a digital sketchbook. To that end, I may be doing more quick portraits

30 minutes. Painter IX.

I'm all pixelated.

In about an hour I'll be taking my friend to the airport, so I whittled away my time (not sleeping) watching the Terminator trilogy and scribbling in Photoshop. I'm becoming more and more comfortable making images in Photoshop, and one of these days I'm going to actually finish a piece with it.

I'm still having a fair amount of trouble when it comes to choosing colors. On this one I cheated a little by creating a bunch of swatches from the original reference. (But, I suppose it isn't really cheating since "no one cares how you got there".) With about a half-dozen colors plucked from the reference I laid in blocks of color and then tweaked the opacity to come up with "new" colors to fill out my range. It's the closest I can come to mixing so far.

Sigh. It's getting there, but I miss painting. Painting started making sense - or at least it became less mysterious. My friend pointed something out to me the other day that hadn't fully occurred to me about working digitally. The arm is missing. Since I usually draw/paint at about 16x20 or larger, I tend to work more with my arm than my wrist. I find it's more comfortable and that's why I don't keep a sketchbook as much these days. But, I can't work that way with digital. There's no holding the tool to work with it's side, and that's taking some getting reacquainted with.

Photoshop has sort of become my working sketchbook in an attempt to get used to it again. Since I started painting I started thinking more in terms of blocks of value and color. Pencils became inadequate for getting at what I was thinking, but now I can knock out full value roughs with the same kind of marks I'd make on canvas. (Kind of like working with a sketch canvas like Leyendecker used to, so he'd know where all of his brushstrokes were on the final painting.) So that's neat. I'm thinking more and more I'll just use it for preparatory work for illustration, but who knows...

Dreaming in Digital

I have digital fleas. I can't see them, but they keep biting me and I just have to sit with my tablet and draw draw draw. After the other night all I want to do is sit in front of my computer and push pixels around.

So I present a quick portrait study of my friend Graciela.

576 x 864 pixels. Photoshop CS3. 9 x 12 Intuos 2 tablet.

Back to digital?

I keep hearing that digital is the wave of the future. Actually, if you recall my meeting with Donato he went as far as to say that painting for illustration was dead. Well, I still don't agree with that but something compelled me to see where my digital chops were these days.

I aimed to kill two birds with one stone with this piece. I've noticed I have a tendency to want really dramatic light patterns on the model when I'm working with the figure. I think it's something I've picked up watching a lot of beautifully lit movies and television shows (Lost, in particular). After all, "light is the great designer". But I'm slowly working towards having more well-lit models and not just "TA-DA!". So the first challenge was to use a picture that wasn't so dynamic with the light composition. Something natural. (Though I should have used a photo that wasn't lit in the luminous nightmare that was my school, where the light was anything but natural.)

Second I wanted to create the entire image digitally. I'm still undecided when it comes to digital illustration, which is funny because it wasn't that long ago that I considered myself a digital illustrator. I think there's definitely a place for it, and there are people who are doing fantastic work with pixels, but there's too much out there that looks the same. To paraphrase a teacher of mine, you can walk into any high school in America and find dozens, if not hundreds, of kids who can do it. I personally would like to create something that my client's niece or nephew couldn't cobble together.

That being said, this digital painting was created on two (count 'em, two) layers. I have been infected with the traditional approach to a painting! The next time I give it a crack I'll be sure to use multiple layers, and masks, and blending options and, and, and... The most difficult part for me was I could think of my palette and know what colors to mix in what amount for the color I wanted, but with Photoshop I wasn't afforded that luxury. (Another reason I love painter...) Sure, I could have imported the photo I was working from and just use the eyedropper to get the exact color I wanted, but I didn't want to do that. Somehow it felt like cheating. All in all I'm pleased with the results. I may go back in to darken some bits up here and there, but I like it. I think my bias for square brushes shines through. I was frustrated I couldn't just twist the tool in my hand to get the shape I wanted. I know I could fork out a few hundred bucks to get the newer tablets, but I think I'll play with it some more and then decide...

It just all still feels too clean to me.

4 x 6 inches (288 x 743 pixels). Photoshop CS3. 9 x 12 Intuos 2 tablet. 1 1/2 hour.